Food support tightens here as feds stall
Chris Kane watched the price of rice climb over the past month on his visits to Sam's Club to stock the shelves of the St. Vincent De Paul food pantry in Madison.
Twenty-eight cents a pound, then 33 cents, then 38.
On Thursday, rice was over 40 cents a pound. "That's a huge increase," Kane, who manages the pantry on Culmen Street off Fish Hatchery Road, said of the 46 percent leap in price.
Even more troubling was a 200-pound purchase limit imposed by the warehouse store this week, said Kane, who had been buying 400 pounds of rice a week at the warehouse store to supplement supplies of a popular staple food.
The wholesaling giant's decision to ration rice brought home the tightening worldwide food supply that has set off riots around the world, and has U.S. consumers confronting high prices at the grocery store.
Skyrocketing prices, coupled with the stalled U.S. farm bill, which supports programs that help feed low-income families, has operators of local emergency food programs warily eyeing their cupboards.
Supplies of commodities to the Community Action Coalition of South Central Wisconsin provided through the U.S. Department of Agriculture are down 31 percent in the first quarter of 2008 compared to a year ago, said Chris Brockel, CAC food program coordinator. Supplies were down 50 percent from the first quarter of 2006, he said.
'Double whammy'
The federal government purchases a variety of foods for emergency food programs, from canned vegetables and meats to cereal and cheese, on the market and through price support and stabilization programs, Brockel said.
Price stabilization and support programs are dwindling as world markets, fostered by trade agreements, set food prices, Brockel said. So less food is available for the government to purchase for the commodities program.
A new farm bill, approved last year but delayed in wrangling over how to pay for it, boosts funding for the nutrition programs and the food stamp program, which account for about two-thirds of the $280 billion, five-year program.
That leaves emergency food programs operating with subsidies based on 2002 food prices, Brockel said.
"It's a double whammy. We have less money to purchase food and less money from food programs," he said.
Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin, the largest supplier of food to 41 local emergency food pantries and programs, also is seeing tighter supplies in the red-hot food market.
Food producers and distributors, whose surplus is donated to Second Harvest, are managing costs by operating more efficiently, producing far less surplus food, said Robert Mohelnitzky, president and CEO.
The reduced supplies forced Second Harvest to tap its on-hand inventory, whittled in recent months from 1 million to 600,000 pounds. A new supplier also gave the foodbank 1 million pounds of food.
"We're concerned that, in the future, the surplus could get even more scarce," Mohelnitzky said. "We have to find new ways to get food or we will have empty shelves."
Don't panic
Second Harvest of America this week introduced an aggressive strategy to increase capacity nationally by collecting 1.5 billion more pounds of food and raising $500,000 more over five years.
The southern Wisconsin affiliate has grown from distributing 3 million pounds of food three years ago to an anticipated 7 million pounds this year, Mohelnitzky said.
The potential for more growth is there, he said, because an estimated 40 percent of food produced in the U.S. doesn't get to the table.
"We just have to work harder and smarter," he said. Group purchasing of food with local programs, and coordinated food delivery plans, are among the strategies that would cut costs, he said.
"I wouldn't panic," Mohelnitzky said. "Our goal is still to end hunger."
David Sandell/The Capital Times
The Society of St. Vincent de Paul director Chris Kane with the four bags of rice he was allowed to buy at Sam's Club. The wholesaler recently placed purchase limits on rice.
